Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/57

Rh the eternal truth the Allseeing has writ for his children's welfare; God not a tyrant, but the Father of all. The sooner these men are on their feet, and about their work, to reinstate fallen mankind, the better for themselves and the world. They may take counsel of their hopes always, of their fears never.

But there are difficulties in the way of education, as in all ways but that to destruction. There is no panacea to educate the race in a moment, and with no trouble. It is slow work, the old way of each man toiling for himself, with labour and self-denial, and many prayers; the Christian way of the strong helping the weak, thinking for them, and aiding them to think for themselves. Some children can scramble up the mountain alone, but others the parents must carry in their arms. The way is for wise men to think and toil, and toil and think, remembering that “Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things,” says Seneca, “in their studies, than if they had led armies, borne offices, or given laws, which indeed they did, not to one city alone, but to all mankind.” There are great difficulties to be overcome, as M. Pastoret, a French judge, has said, respecting improvements in the law: “We have also to encounter mediocrity, which knows nothing but its old routine; always ready to load with reproaches such as have the courage to raise their thoughts and observations above the level to which itself is condemned. ‘These are innovators,’ it exclaims. ‘This is an innovation,’ say the reproducers of old ideas, with a smile of contempt. Every project of reform is, in their eyes, the result of ignorance or insanity, and the most compassionate it is who condescend to accuse you of what they call the bewilderment of your understanding. ‘They think themselves wiser than their fathers,’ says one, and with that the matter seems decided.” Still the chief obstacle is found in the low, material aims of our countrymen, which make them willing to toil eight, ten, twelve, sixteen, even eighteen hours of the day, for the body, and not one for the mind; in the popular notion, that he who works with the hand can do nothing else. No doubt it is hard work to overcome these difficulties, slow work to get round them. But there are many encouragements for the work: our freedom from war; the abundance of physical comfort in our land;